Tag: women writers
Why Storytelling Matters
One of the important things I’ve learned over the course of my long career as an academic administrator is that we define ourselves as human beings through storytelling. After I retired, I became inspired to write my own life’s story, resulting in my first book, Where the Water Meets the Sand. The experience of writing my memoir […]
The New Mom Question: How Long Before I Can Write Again?
By Vanessa Lillie www.vanessalillie.com My mother said to expect a burst of energy before going into labor. With me, she’d been throwing a baby shower for a friend. With my brother, she was picking pecans when her water broke. The burst of energy before I went into labor with my son is not something I […]
Writers – Do Your Job and Stop Worrying About Reviews
Standing before my fourth grade class, reading aloud a story I’d written, it never occurred to me they wouldn’t like it. The teacher, Mrs. Nungazer liked it. Mrs. Nungazer loved it. I can’t even remember what the story was about. Probably a girl figuring out how to get what she made her happy, and put […]
Memoir Writing Tips
I confess I’ve become a compulsive participant in memoir writing workshops. My first one was with Joyce Maynard in Guatemala in 2014, and my own memoir was born there under the volcanoes. Five years later, it will be published on October 1st. Listening to the authors sharing those drafts of memoirs in the writing circle […]
Psychology and Writing
The connections I’ve made, and resisted, between my career as a psychologist and my career as a writer have shifted over time. For many years, I felt the pull between my work as a psychologist and my desire to write as a constant conflict. I spent a considerable amount of time studying, working to get […]
Me And My Agent by Holly Seddon
Where to start? To be frank, I can’t think of another job like literary agent. It sits in the Venn diagram of creativity, inspiration, career management and business acumen. But that doesn’t really explain it. A good agent helps shape ideas, offers editorial notes on outlines and manuscripts, pitches novels to publishers and then argues […]
Longing for Treasure
By Sandra A. Miller Sometimes I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t. There were always brown bag lunches to prepare and a pile of papers to grade, kids to drive to music lessons and weekends crammed with soccer games—so many soccer games. I couldn’t even tell where my own needs began and ended. I read Eat Pray […]
Who Is The Inspiration?
Nervous, scared, anxiously looking around the room, feeling like every word you say is being judged. This are recognisable feelings in everyone, and that is before you start to share your writing. But I’m not talking about the new writing students here, those who are determined to fill a lifelong ambition and who embark on […]
The Purpose of Writing a Book About a Woman Without a Purpose Or: How to Turn a Problem to Advantage
In November three years ago I sat down to attempt the NaNoWriMo challenge of writing 50,000 words of a novel in a month. I had heard of the National Novel Writing Month before but dismissed it as a gimmick. In the event, it turned out to be a surprisingly positive experience, especially for a writer […]
Once Upon a Book Tour
When I was a baby writer (41 when my first book came out), the idea of a book tour was not something I ever thought I’d experience. No, I was just happy to sit in my jammies in the little cell…er, room…my husband banged out in the basement and try to write another book. But […]
Recent Comments